Quote:
Originally Posted by thetincook  The only thing you need to be a chef is to be the boss of the kitchen.
It doesn't take schooling or years of experience. If you've never worked in a kitchen in your life, you could buy a restaurant and become a chef tomorrow.
Chef means boss, thats all.
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And if the "Chef" has done just that, bought himself a kitchen with no previous experience, and proceeds to run it into the ground, do you have respect for him/her? Respect for the title?
Yes, I agree, Chef means Boss, but I won't work for anyone I don't respect. I might hate their guts, but if I can't respect their cooking or management style I won't work for them, because I don't respect them; just eejits in poofy white hats dragging our profession further into the mud.
Like I said, this is a typical N.American problem. We have stringent trade qualifications for electricians, plumbers, etc, but not for cooks. Think about it, how many private schools are there for other trades? Does the State of Alaska recognize a journeyman's ticket from the State of Maine? Does the C.I.A. recognize AFC credentials? Vice versa?
It's a mess, further perpetuated by Foodnetwork and some cheap cooking schools. It just isn't socially acceptable for these people/organizations to admit that a Chef MUST come from a competant cook.
Heck, even the AFC won't even use the word "cook", it's "culinarian", and judging from the material on their website, they don't lay too much emphasis on "cook", but there must be a dozen different classification for "Chefs".
Want respect for the term "Chef"? Here's the secret code, the quickest and most practical route, I call it the 4 T's code: "Trained Trainers Training the Trainees.